Instead, Larry Nassar — an osteopath who served as an athletics and team caregiver for USA Gymnastics and Michigan State University — got away for years with abusing adolescent females put under his sway. He purportedly provided medical services to them, many in exclusive and demanding athletic camps where young participants were cut off from their friends, family, coaches, and personal physicians. He “treated” aspiring Olympians, at all hours of the night and day, alone and without any other adults around, in their bedrooms, on their beds — not in medical offices or athletic training facilities.

He enthusiastically told his patients, many of whom excelled at their sport because of their willingness to please adults and to be coached, that he could deal with their pains and injuries with what he termed pelvic manipulations in which he digitally penetrated them in their private parts. Without medical cause or justification, he conducted repeated and invasive “exams” of girls and young women’s genitals.

In a legal spectacle, more than 150 courageous victims denounced him in court. Nassar has been convicted of numerous sexual crimes and sentenced to 40 to 175 years in prison. Huge questions remain as to how so many adults — including academic and sporting group leaders — failed to protect vulnerable young people from rampant sexual predation under the guise of medical care.

The New York Times, in a sad sign of the times, has put out a series of stories that may help grown-ups talk through a difficult topic like sexual abuse and predation with young people, to answer their tough questions with appropriate candor, and to offer children guidance and comfort. After all, thousands of girls throw their hearts, minds, and bodies into competitive gymnastics, and tens of millions around the globe have been captivated by the sport contested at its pinnacle by its elite young women athletes.

The American Academy of Pediatricians, the New York Times has noted, has put out an extensive, detailed policy paper on protecting youngsters from sexual abuse by health care providers. Reading it and media accounts on this case can’t help but trigger basic, big questions as to how the U.S. Olympic Committee, USA Gymnastics, MSU, and an army of adults defied common sense and fundamental integrity in allowing Nassar’s sex crime spree.

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